


Don't you want to share the guilt?

by AbbyHolmes



Category: Call of Duty
Genre: CODAW, Call of Duty - Freeform, Call of duty advanced warfare, Friendship, Guilt, OS, Oneshot, Post-Irons Death, advanced warfare, contains a lot of swearing, loads of dialogue, might also be read as Gideon/Mitchell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbyHolmes/pseuds/AbbyHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the death of Irons and the end of Atlas, Mitchell struggles to cope with his past, when one night, Gideon appears to remind him that the past is alive and hurting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't you want to share the guilt?

**Author's Note:**

> Well. My very first upload at AO3 also is my very first piece of english fiction (I'm of german origin so please forgive me if my language skills are far from perfect) and my very first fanfiction about a videogame.
> 
> Since I just love the characters Gideon and Mitchell and I read some very lovely stories about them, but still find there are not enough Gideon and Mitchell - centered stories out there, I wrote one myself about an idea that kept sticking to my thoughts. I just kept asking myself, how the events of CODAW might have changed Gideon and Mitchell, so this Oneshot is a try to explain my vision about their post-atlas idetity and relationship. Hope you enjoy my messy writing!

Don’t you want to share the guilt?

It wasn’t until dawn that Mitchell allowed himself leaning into self-pitty. When his workday was done and darkness embraced the camp, Mitchell tended to keep wandering around in the greyness of the badly lit place, before heading for his quarters for sleep. At this time of the night, when the young cadets he taught during the day, finally went to sleep or did their nightshift of guard, he no longer felt the need to act all well-adjusted and content. In the shadows, nobody ever wondered about his anxious, aimless wandering. Nobody cared about the fed up, tired look on his face. Nobody raised any questions and nobody disturbed his circling thoughts. He became invisible, melted into the barely identifiable surrounding and thereby managed to calm himself down enough to settle in and pray for the grace of a little nightmareless sleep.

So when Mitchell returned to his private tent - that wasn’t actually a normal tent but a high-tech metal and waterproof cloth entity - after his usual walk one cold night in the middle of February, he didn’t expect anything unusual to happen. Live after rehabilitation had been calm, routine, maybe even boring, even if the boredom of no longer being capable to ever return to a battlefield didn’t bring any peace to his ongoing agitation. Mitchell still felt haunted with what he saw. With what he did. 

Killing off Irons and stopping Manticore, they had managed to behead the Snake Atlas had become. Surviving Atlas members vanished into terrorism or dropped their weapons as soon as they recognised that their leader did fall and their mission was over. Some of them seemed to actually be delighted that Irons was over, that they were freed from their duty. Mitchell didn’t really know how many of them had already noticed what Atlas was really doing, what monster, what dictator Irons appeared to be in the broad daylight. Thinking about it once more, Mitchell wondered how any of the obedient Atlas Soldiers couldn’t see the cruelty, asking himself how they were able to keep on fighting for something evil, for something that was killing innocent people, for a non-existent “greater good”. He didn’t find any answers but still felt guilt flooding his feelings, reflecting about the fact that he had to kill so many of his former brothers in arms. Some of the people his gunshots sent into afterlife, he had known pretty well and he remembered their faces every night in his sleep. Mitchell nearly couldn’t bear having been one of the bad guys for so long, admitting that being an Atlas soldier for years, he helped empowering Irons. 

Mitchell wasn’t even sure if it had been the right decision to stay in the military branch. The US Troops found him a job as an instructor for youngsters new to the military. They had given him the job, generously condoning the fact that he had served an opponent, just as if they owed him for getting rid of Irons. Mitchell had immediately taken the job, not thinking about how his conscience might be dealing with him sending more lamps to slaughter. Jack Mitchell no longer regarded war as a glorious thing, he no longer believed that nations such as the US had a right to intervene with weapons. He was craving for a world without weapons and gunshots and explosions and he chuckled at the irony that Irons had always called his goal a world without all that, a world without war. But how many souls must be meeting their maker before there could be final peace? How many innocents had to pay the price? Mitchell no longer understood, and he no longer felt like a soldier. He wasn’t able to shut his brain off and just become a barely human weapon. He saw too much. He did too much. He felt too much. 

But since he didn’t have the best education and nobody would be willing to give work to a slightly disabled ex mercenary soldier, Mitchell decided to stick with what he had, to train these man going to the battlefield and to try his best to teach them how to survive, how to care for one another, while bullets are flying through the air.   
Once more reflecting his past and allowing his thoughts to go round in the same old circles, Mitchell sat on his camp bed, drinking a bottle of beer to drown his sorrow in the dangerous angelic liquid of alcohol for once and didn’t even notice that somebody entered his tent without permission and stared at him for more than an entire minute, until that uninvited guest raised his voice and greeted him. 

“Hey there, mate.”  
Mitchell was up on his feed within less than a second, on full alert, his hand on his weapon, just until he recognised the figure in the flickering light as his former Captain, and relaxed.  
“Gideon.” It was rather a diagnosis of his existence than a greeting.  
“Man, you sure look like crap. Did you recently see a ghost?”  
Mitchell chuckled.  
“No. No, I’m sorry. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”  
“Got one for your old Cap too?” Gideon pointed at the bottle in Mitchells hands and saw him nod, walking to the small refrigerator and handing the icecold bottle over to him.  
Gideon opened the bottle, took a sip and smirked.  
“Not bad those tents you have here.”  
“It’s alright. Want to take a seat?”  
Mitchell pointed at a chair and Gideon raised his eyebrows while sitting down.  
“I flew here over 500 fucking miles and you’re asking if I want to sit? For fucks sake, my feet are dying. ‘Cause I want to sit.”  
“You flew. You didn’t walk.”  
“But I did enough walking before heading to visit you, idiot.”  
Mitchell took a sip of his beer and avoided looking at Gideon.  
They remained silenct until Gideon’s bottle was half empty and he cleared his throat.  
“Thought you might welcome an old mate a little warmer than that.”  
“I didn’t hear of you for moths.”  
“I was busy.”  
“Yeah? Doing what?”  
“Fighting. Doing my fuckin’ Job.”  
“Nice to hear you’re fully back in business.”  
“I for sure am.”  
Mitchell avoided Gideons gaze, that he might have recognised as unusually worried if he didn’t rather stare at the floor. “How’s the arm?”  
“Fine. They got me some prothethis that allows me to live a rather normal life. I won’t ever be able to go back onto the battlefield, but I’m able to teach rookies.”  
“Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it.”  
Mitchell, surprised to hear Gideon apologize – Gideon practically never apologized, Mitchell until now had thought he didn’t even now the word ‘sorry’ – frowned.  
“About what?”  
Gideon grunted. “You not going back to battle. I just assumed they’d give you back a new arm as good as the old one, you know?”  
“Well they offered it. But I said no.”  
“Are you nuts? Why?”  
“Because I’m tired of it, Gideon. I’m tired of war.”  
“Bollocks. You just don’t have the balls to...”  
“To what? To go ahead killing whatever strikes my aim?”  
“I’d better be going.”  
“Yeah, you’d better be.”

Gideon stood up, set the emptied bottle on the table and turned away. Millimetres before the exit, he hesitated, turned, opened his mouth to say something, but then decided not to and simply muttered something incomprehensive, before preparing to finally leave.   
“You don’t feel it?” Mitchell asked.  
Gideon chuckled and turned to him. “Feel? Are we a support group now? I’m not gonna fuckin’ hug you, Mitchell, that’s for sure.”  
“So you don’t feel any guilty?”  
Gideon shook his head but Mitchell could see a flicker in his eyes that revealed how Gideon really did feel guilty.  
“About what?”  
“About being with Atlas for so long. About killing those soldiers we’ve been knowing for years. About going on as if nothing ever happened.”  
“Why would I?”  
“Because I know you. You’re not half as badass as you act.”  
“And you’re not half the man you look like, chicken.”  
Mitchell shook his head, letting a bitter laugh slip out of his mouth and Gideon finally showed some emotional reaction by going mad, gripping Mitchell by his collar.  
“Don’t you dare laughing at my face, bitch. Not after all I did to save you.”  
“I’m not laughing about you.”  
“What else is it you find funny then, eh?”  
“This. Us.”  
“What kinda us are you talking about? There’s no us.”  
“Well, there used to be. We were a team, right?”  
“I was your boss.”  
“But you had my back.”  
Gideon swallowed, looking away.  
“I did. For god’s sake I always did.”  
“And after all we’ve been trough you’re still not admitting that this anger is not about me?”  
“What the heck are you talking about?”  
“You do feel guilty. I know you well enough to see it. You’re simply not men enough to admit that you’re a human being.”  
“So whining about the past is manly? You obviously are nuts.”  
“So you’re telling me you never have any nightmares about all that happened?”  
Gideon hesitated, their eyes met and the older man quickly looked away, steering his gaze to the floor, letting go of Mitchells Collar, taking a step back.  
“So what? I’ve seen worse before.”  
“You didn’t.”  
Gideon didn’t deny it and sat back down on that chair.  
“We did what we had to do, Mitchell. We’re soldiers.”  
“But don’t we have a brain to question what we do?”  
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re being a philosopher now? Don’t you remember, how keen you were on getting back to the battlefield as soon as possible when you first joined Atlas? Never seen a fucker that badly injured getting back on his feet as fast as you did. You were hungry for war, Mitchell. So don’t you dare accusing me for doing what I always did.”  
“I’m not.”  
Gideon snorted. “So what’s this all about?”  
“It’s about me, asking myself, why the hell you came to visit.”  
“Goddamnit, Mitchell, I just....” He stumbled. “I just wanted to.”  
“What for?”  
Gideon bit the inner side of his cheek, trying to contain himself, to keep inside what he didn’t want to admit, but he finally couldn’t take it any longer.  
“To see if you’re alright, for fucks sake.”  
“Why would you be interested in that?”  
“Because I am your captain and it is my duty...”  
“You no longer are my captain.”  
Again, Gideon hesitated to answer for nearly half a minute, but then managed to squeeze out the words, he wasn’t willing to say out loud.  
“But I am your friend.”   
“Where were you when I needed one?”  
“What the...”  
“I’m serious, Gideon. I would have needed my captain. When I was alone in the hospital, at the rehabilitation, asking myself how to deal with what I’ve done. How to deal with what I’ve lost, because I don’t know if you remember but once again, I didn’t have a fucking arm any longer! I’d have needed guidance but you just vanished. I didn’t hear a word from you after that day we killed Irons. You were just gone.”  
Gideon swallowed hard, opened his mouth to say something harsh and to block the guilt that came flooding his insides, but he couldn’t. All he could was to stay silent as Mitchell continued.  
“What did you expect, appearing out of nowhere, doing the usual grumpy smalltalk?”  
Gideon didn’t answer, so Mitchell’s voice got louder.  
“How did you expect me to react?”  
“I don’t know!”  
Gideon was shouting now, up on his feet again.  
“It’s not like you ever tried to contact me!”  
“I was busy getting my arm back.”  
“Bloody awesome. ‘Cause I was busy getting my life back together.”  
“I thought none of this mattered to you.”  
“So you think it was nice to find out Irons was a bastard? You fucking believe I liked leaving my home?”  
“Which home?”  
“Atlas.”  
“You considered Atlas your home?”  
“The only one I’ve ever had.”  
“But Irons...”  
“I know, you stupid idiot. But that doesn’t change a bit of it.”  
“I knew I’m right.”  
“About what, genius?”  
“About that guilt thing.”  
“Then be right, Mitchell! Feel great about it! Wallow in the fact that I do feel guilty for betraying the men that always trusted me! Enjoy being right, if that’s making you fucking happy!”  
“It does not make me happy, Gideon. It’s rather the opposite.”  
“Just shut up. I’ve had enough of this shit.”  
“You’re free to go.”  
“I’m not. The helicopter’s not picking me up before tomorrow noon. So will you please shut up and just let me sleep in peace on the floor?”   
“This is my tent after all.”  
“Great. I’ll be sleeping outside then.”  
Gideon was about to get up, when Mitchell sighted and held him back.  
“Don’t.”  
“Get that hand off my arm or I swear I’m ‘a break your nose!”  
Mitchell dropped his hand off Gideon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. You can stay.”  
“Only if you shut up.”  
“I promise.”

Silence kept hanging in the air while Gideon set up his sleeping bag on the floor and Mitchell sat on his bed, trying to look as if he was busy writing a message on his phone. Truth is, Mitchell didn’t really have anyone he could text – let alone Ilona who after Irons death moved back to her family in Russia and dropped out of the military to just take a very long holiday. 

Gideon and Mitchell didn’t speak and they didn’t even look at each other. Mitchell still felt anger pulsing through his veins and was busy enough containing himself, trying not to explode. He just couldn’t understand Gideon. He simply didn’t get why he had come to visit and – even more disturbing - why he wasn’t able to admit he was going through the same nightmarish trauma Mitchell himself had failed to leave behind. 

Meanwhile, Gideon simply felt bad. He wouldn’t ever admit that Mitchell was right. That he understood how Mitchell was disappointed with him, how he doubted whether killing Irons could make up for everything that happened before. Gideon felt guilty. He was questioning his own motives, his decisions, his life. Grumpy and thick-skinned, Gideon still was a human being after all. A human being that felt bad for letting a friend down. But since he wasn’t a sharing & caring kind of guy, he didn’t voice his thoughts and remained silent.

It was Mitchell who finally decided to go try breaking the ice. He knew he couldn’t stand a night sharing a tent not only with Gideon but with all those unsaid accusations and apologies hanging in the air, thickening the atmosphere. Mitchell felt like he couldn’t breathe and realised that gave him two options: a) running away from the problem and sleep somewhere else for the night, never talk to Gideon again and abandon the only friend he had. B) Get Gideon drunk. Mitchell decided to try for b), dug out a bottle of Whiskey from his cupboard and silently put the bottle and two glasses on the table. After Mitchell filled both of the glasses generously with quiet a lot of the brownish liquid, Gideon didn’t hesitate for a second to take the offer and drank his glass up in one gulp.  
Mitchell nearly laughed at the sight of Gideons disgusted face.  
“Goddamnit, that’s the worst shit I ever drank.”  
“Wanna have some more?”  
“Gimme that bottle.”  
Gideon opened the bottle and drowned at least a quarter of it.  
“Leave something for me, would you?”  
Mitchell tried reaching for the bottle but Gideon knocked his hand away.  
“Fuck me.”  
“I prefer not to.”  
Gideon gave him a glare that set to kill and handed the bottle back over.  
Mitchell took a sip and returned it to Gideon who then continued to try breaking the record for the fastest emptied bottle of Whiskey.   
“You’re even sure that shit is Whiskey at all?”  
“It’s what the label says.”  
“Disgusting.”  
He took another sip and Mitchell started to worry if Gideon might be badly off.  
“You throw up in my tent, I kill you in your sleep.”  
“You can’t. I’d be killing you first.”  
“Wanna give it a try?”  
“I don’t throw up. Did you ever see me throw up?”  
“I for sure never saw you emptying a bottle of Whiskey that fast.”  
Gideon sceptically looked at the bottle that no longer contained anything.  
“C’mon, it wasn’t even full.”  
“It was.”  
“Anyway...” Gideon leaned back in his chair, scratching the back of his head.  
Mitchell watched with amusement how clumsy his movements were becoming, how his talking sounded like babbling and how Gideon obviously was drunk already.  
“Got something else?”  
“Nope.”  
“Sissy.”

Silence returned and Mitchell, having no Idea how to restart conversation, got a little disappointed. He knew Gideon didn’t usually become the most talkative person when drunk, but he had hoped that it might at least become a little easier to get to him. But to his own surprise, while Mitchell thought to himself how stupid his idea has been, Gideon himself started talking. 

“I just didn’t visit before ‘cause I didn’t know what to say, you know. It wasn’t...I...oh fuck off.” Mitchell let out a sigh, partly relieved, partly annoyed.  
“’Hello’ would’ve been a great start.”  
“Don’t be a dick. You know what I mean.”  
“I don’t.”  
“Fuck, Mitchell, I...I don’t do this, okay? I’m not talking shit over. I was trying to leave the past in the past. And that’s what you should.”  
“Leaving the past in the past, you shouldn’t have come.”  
Gideon shook his head, fixating the table with his eyes.   
“I had to.”  
“No, you...”  
“I’m sorry Mitchell. I really am.”  
Mitchell was so blown with surprise, he first didn’t answer but stare at Gideon as if he saw a Ghost. “You...what?”  
“Don’t make me say that again.”  
Gideon lifted his gaze, locking eyes with Mitchell.  
And then Mitchell saw it. He saw all that Gideon wouldn’t ever dare to say. He saw the bitterness, the fear, the guilt. And he believed Gideon that he really was sorry.  
“It’s alright.”  
Gideon broke their eye-contact and looked at his feet.  
“So we’re good?”  
Mitchell shortly hesitated, feeling his chest tighten at the sight of the sort of unknown look of a contrite Gideon. “We are.”  
Gideon let out a sigh of relieve before he could hold himself back.  
They sat around a little while longer, enjoying the now more peaceful calmness between them, until Mitchell got up, pointing at his bed.  
“We’d better be sleeping now. Got a lot of work to do tomorrow.”  
“Yeah, right.”

Gideon awkwardly got up, staggered for a few steps until he pulled himself together and lay down in his sleeping bag on the floor before Mitchell turned off the light.  
Darkness had always felt protective for both of the soldiers and so maybe it was the lack of light and the impossibility to face each other – besides a whole lot of alcohol - that made Gideon talk. Mitchell had nearly dozed off into sleep when a quiet muttering snapped him back to reality. 

“I like to make myself think that we didn’t know better.”  
“What do you mean?” Mitchell turned his head to where Gideon must be lying but couldn’t see anything besides the dark scheme of some creature on the floor.  
“Atlas. You sure as hell didn’t know better. You lost everything and Irons came up like a fucking white knight giving you a second chance. If I’d been you, I might not have doubted him as well.”  
“You’re making this too easy on me. There had been signs, I should’ve seen earlier.”  
“What about me then? I’ve been with Atlas half my live, Mitchell. I never doubted them until you and Ilona made me. I didn’t see a damn thing myself.”  
“As you said: It was your home. You don’t doubt a home.”  
“Are you kidding me? I finally admit that I am guilty and you object me after talking me into this crap for hours?”  
“I never said you were guilty. I just wanted you to admit you feel like it.”  
Gideon snorted. “Well that’s bloody helpful.”  
“Nobody is flawless. You did your job. We did. Only thing I don’t get is...”  
“What?”  
“You didn’t believe Ilona and me. You didn’t flee with us.”  
Mitchell heard Gideon groaning and went on talking. “I know you just wanted to verify before destroying what you had, but...well I sort of might have thought we were, you know, better friends than that.”  
“You won’t ever be backing off about that shit, will you?”  
“Maybe not.”  
“You’re right. I was being an arse. I wasn’t a good captain and I wasn’t anything close to a good friend. That one’s completely on me.”  
“Glad you finally get that.” Mitchells voice revealed the slight smirk on his face he couldn’t hold back hearing Gideon saying something that – by all means – sounded really kind.   
“Why you’re still so mad at me then?”  
“I told you. You abandoned me.”  
“I didn’t.”  
“Fuck it, Gideon. It felt like it.”  
“I just couldn’t handle it, okay? I...I sort of thought if I got out of that Exo sooner, if I believed in your doubts earlier, if we saved Cormack, maybe you wouldn’t have lost that arm. Maybe we wouldn’t have needed to kill so many old companions. I just. I didn’t feel like living that all over again, okay?”  
“Maybe someone should’ve made you drunk earlier.”  
“Tell that to anyone in the morning and I might have to break your legs.”  
“Whom should I tell anything?”  
“Anyway. Enough of that psycho-stuff.”  
“You started it again.”  
“Just to make you happy, Jack.”  
“Stop calling me that.”  
Gideon laughed his rough, warm laugh and sighed to get back to serious one last time.

“I want you to know that we’re still friends though. I’m not good with that talking stuff, but...I might at least act as if I’m listening if you need somebody to, you know, cry your little heart out to.”  
“Very funny.”  
“I mean it.”  
“So you won’t vanish again.”  
“I won’t. Actually applied for a job.”  
“Were?”  
“Here?”  
“Why?”  
“I do not belong outside there any longer.”  
“You’re getting old.”  
“My fucking bones are, at least.”  
“What kinda job?”  
“Instructor.”  
“You’re applying for the job as my boss?”  
“Yep.”  
“Goddamnit, I’ll never get away from under your thumb, will I?”  
“Nope.”  
“Shut the fuck up then, Cap. I need to do my work in the morning.”

Mitchell was long asleep, when Gideon caught himself thinking how beautiful it was seeing Mitchell breathe in the shadows of the night. Watching Mitchell’s chest moving up and down, knowing that nobody was trying to kill him calmed Gideon and made him smirk. He was glad, they talked it over, glad, that Mitchell was alright.  
Alive, after all that had happened.   
Still sane and still a kind soul.   
For once, Gideon allowed himself to admit that he cared about Mitchell, admit that it had nearly ripped him apart to not know how he was, that he missed that annoying bastard.   
For once, Gideon felt happy.   
“Good night, Jack”, he whispered with a smile before he dozed off.


End file.
